


will arrive in 2 minutes

by kikkomanwrites



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-19 01:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3590505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikkomanwrites/pseuds/kikkomanwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rank 1 Investigator Touka Kirishima meets a barista, Ken Kaneki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. an empty world

"Here." The barista pushes a cup of coffee towards her before her skull could land on the wooden bar. "It's on the house."

He smiles at her, while she suspiciously stares at him (and drinks the coffee anyways).

The other barista snorts, "It's on your paycheck, dumbass," and continues to wash the mountain of cups, plates, and utensils that accumulated during the busy weekday. The pile extends to forever, but somehow remains standing.

The cafe is in sunset. The few patrons that remain are by themselves, just like her. Perhaps, they have no one to go home to. Or, they are like her and refuse to return home to a brother, who scorns her and seeks power, a mismatched family, and a dozen responsibilities. She does not know in the end. They all remain in the cool dark of the cafe - fiddling with their papers, typing on their phones, and staring at the books behind the counter. The sun sinks behind the horizon, slowly at first, but weighed down with time, it will disappear into the waters of the sky - like a sponge.

She knows that she must leave when the sun finally disappears.

The waiters continue to bustle around. They serve the last of the coffee, scrub at the last of the dishes, and begin piling up the empty chairs in preparation for closing time. It was another reminder to go back to a house she no longer wanted. 

The same barista tapped her shoulder. 

She must have glared because he looked terribly nervous. 

She felt a tiny bit of pity, but she grabbed the silver suitcases (Yukimura 1/3) on the right and on the left (Inu).  They were heavy in her hands. 

"Oh... um... You don't need to leave!" She fixed him with a glare. He trembled a bit. The other barista stood to a corner, smirking. The idiot in front of her shoves a book towards her. "I thought you looked a bit down, so I wanted you to have this book. It's a selection of short stories by Anton Chekov, a famous-"

"I took a Russian Literature course in school, but thanks." She sets her suitcase down and grabs the book, shoving it in her purse.

The barista began to beam, unfortunately. His hair was white and black close-up, not brown with blonde ombre as she previously thought, without the distance and the dark of the cafe hiding it. His eye was covered by a band aid, probably from when the tower of plates fell on him two weeks ago.

He was all-in-all forgettable except for those two parts.

"Who should I ask for when I want to return this book?" 

It's time to leave. The cafe grows darker with every second.

"Erm, Ken Kaneki."

She could just leave without a name.

"Touka Kirishima."

She begins to walk to the door.

"It's nice to meet you - Kirishima-san!"

She turns... ( _and doesn't know what to do_ ) and nods ( _coolly and smoothly_ ) back.

The other barista snickers and a small pile of plates lands on him.

Touka wonders how the cafe manages to retain workers with half of them injured.

\---

The clock reads 00:00 when she finally finishes the anthology.

\---

"I liked 'Lady with a Dog.'"

"You should read 'Doctor Zhivago' next. It's a..."


	2. a judgement (or wish)

_Mission 212 in the 8th Ward:_

_The 6th Squad led by Arata Kirishima and Yo-black-black-black-black- was searching for -black-black- in the 8th and 9th ward when they suddenly vanished two days into their mission._

_-_

_The 6th Squad was officially declared missing after a week. Arrangements were made - black - black -_

_\- black -_

_-_

_On 09/13/-black-black-black- Arata Kirishima returned to CCG headquarters not as a human, but as an experimental half-ghoul. We can only assume the worst for the other investigators in the 6th Squad._

_-_

_He did not return with peaceful intentions. With his mind transformed into one of a ghoul, he began to wreck havoc with his new kagune and as many of his former comrades found out with his -black- black - black -_

_-_

_Special Class Investigator Arima Kishou inflicted the final blow on the ghoul. His last words were -black-_

_-_

_His body was later used for the development of several technologies, such as -black- and..._

_-_

"... the Quinx squad." Touka read the last lines to herself. 

She looked at Arima after she finished reading the entire, meager report. He stared back calmly into her eyes.

She crunched the paper softly under her hands. It did not wrinkle as much as she wish it did, but it was her only copy of the report aside from the off-limits, uncensored version hidden on the 2nd floor. 

"I considered your father a friend."

"Can you tell me his last words?" She had never asked this before, and Arima shifted slightly in his seat as he realized the significance of her request. She didn't want to know for a long time. It would ruin the fragile world she created in their last conversation during her childhood - where her father wasn't a monster. But, today, after stopping by that cafe with the stupid barista, she truly felt she could take the initiative. 

She was ready to understand her father's monstrous mind in his last moments now. 

"He said to me... 'Arima, don't trust them!'"

She didn't understand still. 

The official word from the CCG was that Aogiri Tree, active in the mission area, was responsible for her father's transformation, the 6th Squad's deaths, and the general chaos of the situation.

Shouldn't he have mentioned Aogiri Tree in his madness-driven ravings if they were the culprits?

"It doesn't matter anymore." She broke their silence. "I'll remember him as the father he was before the mission."

Arima closed his eyes for some random purpose. It wasn't to calm himself because he was always calm. It wasn't to console himself because as Ayato liked to grumble in his younger years, he felt no guilt. 

Maybe he needed to blink for an extraordinary length of time.

"The chairman wants me to warn you that despite your sympathy for your father's situation, you should not pity ghouls. Your squad has discovered six ghouls in this month so far, but you have insisted on sparing all of them, even the most useless. Paralleling your father's actions as a CCG Investigator just further cements your negative reputation."

Arima didn't care about that, but Touka doubted he even felt some swell of emotion to anything.

"Section 2-"

"Requires us to kill them painlessly."

She squashed several bitter words before they sprouted as replies.

"I will try to do better in my later endeavors."

They both knew it was a lie, but they both coped in different ways.

"The chairman did commend you for your leadership in the Quinx Squad..."

She thought of Ayato and his lost, misplaced guilt, anger, and shame. He was looking for answers, ones she would never have and ones CCG wouldn't either. 

- 

"And that's what Arima-san told me."

She sips her coffee levelly as she stares across at her brother. They are sitting at the small coffee table. Her fingers wish to scratch the thin marks of age on the wood table. It was a wedding gift from her late father to her even-later mother.

Her brother snorts at her. He had never trusted Arima after their father's death.

"Some nonsense like that? He's lying."

He didn't clarify who was the liar, but Touka knew from years of silent warfare, doors slammed, and awkward dinners, Ayato only felt anger for one person - their adoptive guardian.

"Arima..." It wasn't even a defensive outcry. She could sense it. Ayato was getting wilder and more uncontrollable as the days flew by. As the first experimental human-ghoul CCG investigator, there were no limiting gates. The whole scheme was dependent on her ability to control her brother and his mastery of the CCG's virtues - loyalty, temperance, and action. 

He only mastered the third.

"Killed our dad, his best friend, without a tear." His eyes were gleaming black now. Her suitcases were five feet away. The two knives hidden under her jacket would not help her subdue Ayato or protect herself from his kagune. "I doubt CCG would even tell us the truth of that mission."

Eighteen seconds passed.

"Shut up! This is our reality now! What can we do about it?" She snapped. It was their lot in life. The initial promising starts, the catastrophic fall from respect to the chaff, the expectations of failure and betrayal for both of them... there was no changing that.

There was a distortion of the air around his back.

"We need to find the truth."

"Fine! Quit the CCG and roam the wilds! Go find your stupid truth and get killed for it!"

She ran upstairs and for the first time in her life, slammed the door so loudly that she heard Saiko yelp from the noise.

-

_"Touka..."_

_"Dad? Is that you? Everyone said that you were dead! I'm so-"_

_"I'm sorry, Touka... I can't stay for long."_

_"Dad? Please stay."_

_"Touka, promise me that you'll understand everyone. Humans. Ghouls. Everyone."_

_"What's going on, Dad?"_

_-_

"Nope. Haven't seen him." 

"No."

"I haven't seen him this entire day, but he might be in the CCG main office."

"I didn't hear him since 3 AM."

"Let's continue with the meeting then."

-

One days passed.

She opened the door to his room, expecting to see the usual mess of a teenager. But, there was nothing. 

The drawers were empty. His hairpins were gone from their usual container, even his Quinque was missing. His bedding was neatly organized. It was clean. 

She saw a note on his bare, scratched willow desk. 

[ _I'm finding Uncle Yomo._ ] _  
_

She wasn't the only one with initiative after all, but she knew the truth.

"Yomo's dead, Ayato." She murmured to herself, but it didn't change her situation at all.

Ayato was gone.

-

_"Dad! Why are you leaving? Don't-"_

_-_

"Here, on the house."

The muttered retort of "On your paycheck" drifted from the backroom.

She grumbled into the counter, but still drank the coffee.

"I don't want to pry, but did something happen? You seem sadder than usual."

Excuse him. She was a perfectly happy, boisterous person. 

She would have smacked him, but he had already dodged without dislodging any of the plates.

"My brother is gone, looking for our dead relative."

He cupped his chin.

"Ah, that's always tough."

"Yeah."

She wasn't in the mood for talking.

"I'm sure he'll come back to you."

Although none of the bowls, plates, silverware, and mugs fell, an heavy, cast-iron pot unbalanced by his escape from justice fell on his head.

Karma.

The barista in the backroom snickered. 

-

"Kirishima-san, if you need to talk-"

"I'm fine. You should obviously watch out for yourself, you clumsy moron."

 


	3. the mysterious sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed some parts of Ch. 2 - please take a look.

_-_

_A hand brushed her hair away from her eye and swept the bangs up with a pin._

_Her name._

_The voice calling her was beautiful and haunting, familiar and forgotten._

_The light streaming into the windows was clear._

_The sounds and smells of the bustling kitchen grumbled into their space. Five different spices smoked through the air. Flour wafted in the air._

_Her scalp was massaged by the person behind her._

_Her name._

_"Mom?"_

_-_

Ayato, even after his departure, played the part of the annoying little brother well. Touka and occasionally Arima, as her younger brother's official guardian, was forced through a series of five official meetings, where the higher-ups (to her) looked down at her and tried to appear threatening to Arima. It was just boring and demeaning.

The whole ordeal confirmed once again Touka's suspicions about the CCG and the Kirishima family. Her father was seen as a strange pacifist, who spared the lives of target ghouls and sent them to Kokuria, but after his forced transformation and capture by the CCG, his prior actions became a black mark. If he sympathized with ghouls before, did he betray his squad to Aogiri for experimentation? Did he willingly become a ghoul and devour his squad? Was he truly loyal to humanity? The remnants of the Kirishima family were leftovers of a traitor legacy.

She graduated with honors and became an investigator early on, while Ayato squabbled with, fought, and crushed predatory ghouls during his truant excursions outside of the school. Although their parents, despite their failings, were talented investigators, in honesty, their children's career paths mirrored their adoptive guardian's life. They were lonely prodigies, shunned by the CCG as well as their peers for their parents' actions. 

It did not help their reputation though that Touka, from some hidden spite or obligation (she wasn't sure which), mirrored her father's actions by sparing every ghoul, no matter how weak and useless, she encountered. Although her rank was seriously curtailed by these actions, Touka remained unaffected by CCG retribution as long as she did her job somewhat.

Ayato liked to pretend that her talent and leadership skills protected her from official retribution, but she knew the truth. It was all Arima and his weird, complex friendship with her father. 

"If the CCG technology developed with your brother is captured by Aogiri Tree ( _if he joins it like your traitor dad),_  then we will hold you fully responsible for this loss." She nodded stiffly, trying to bury the hysterical laughter bubbling in her lungs.

Why would Ayato join Aogiri Tree? The One-Eyed Owl did kill their mother.

-

_"Do you remember mom?"_

_A unique warmth stemming from the comfort of callused hands._

_"No."_

_-_

She followed a repetitive pattern during the next week and a half. 

Find a ghoul or two and capture it to send to the CCG. Tempt Urie with a chance of a good word with Arima and possible promotion, so that he would force Saiko to get out of bed and work. Beat the muffin out of Mutsuki, who managed to toughen up slightly from his calluses, but remained a strangely weak figure. Plan, organize, and plan more with Shirazu on operations, evidence, and general team atmosphere.

But, without Ayato as a second-in-command, Touka never had much of a life anymore until late evening.

If she was awake enough (which strangely she always was) to walk over to :re and get a coffee, after dinner, she read one of the barista's books and chatted with him about the content. He always seemed to have a book or two in his pockets for her.

She found it disgustingly sweet. The megane-barista seemed to agree.

On a Wednesday, he finally threw his fellow worker to the dogs of relationships and dating. 

"Stop giggling like that, you annoying Eyepatch, and ask the Investigator woman to dinner or something."

The barista blushed and started stammering. 

She sighed. He was decent. He had good tastes in books. He was alright. Tolerable probably. 

"Is next Friday night good?"

His stumbles and babble intensified, but she heard an 'yes.' He was definitely not cute though. 

Definitely.

-

Serpent was one of the best shit-talking ghouls she ever encountered. She kinda appreciated it at times. It was a different story than the usual screams and threats of eating her eyeballs or toes. 

She missed it. Ever since she unlocked Inu from its case, he became quieter. She aimed three shots at his chest, two at his legs, and one at his left shoulder while catapulting herself through the air to dodge his tail. The shots were deflected quickly and he aimed his kagune at her. She peered at the tail sailing through the air at high speeds and shot three rounds at it to increase her momentum and decrease its future reach. 

She heard him grunt as the shots rang true. She clipped Inu to her belt and ran towards him with Yukimura 1/3. She dodged the twists and turns of his kagune, slicing thin and thick cuts along the scales, until she reached his form. She aimed the tip of the blade at his shoulder blade, but through a slight stumble of her foot - stabbed him through the lung.

_Shit. I can't help him in plain sight. I can't let him go either._

_Think. Think._

She didn't need to, however. A mass of writhing rinkaku tentacles slammed from above onto where she was originally standing. Another ghoul was supporting Serpent, who was shallowly breathing in order not to acerbate his injury, and handing him pieces of human.

This was getting ridiculous. She hoped that the Qs were at least able to grab Torso before he disappeared in the confusion. She grabbed Inu once again and unfurled it into defensive mode. Time to see if she could at least survive.

She gazed into the single eye of the newcomer. The new ghoul returned her stare and his kagune was ready to strike. They both began to run towards each other, weapons poised to injure and incapacitate. She followed a similar strategy as before. Shoot the kagune with the powerful Inu and somehow stab them with Yukimura with their weakened defenses. 

However, she did not account for the ghoul aiming for Inu itself. Tentacles shot up from the ground and seized the Quinque, crushing it. Her treasured weapon trembled slightly before giving way to the iron pressure. She cut through the rinkaku holding the shattered pieces of her other weapon with Yukimura 1/3, but when she did - they were gone.

-

They got Torso, which was better than nothing.

-

The cicadas in the park were chirping as they walked through the well-lit paths. The dirt roads were bordered by the glimmer of fireflies, the crunch of the rocks under their feet, and the rustles of the leaves shaken by the night breeze.

It was quiet in a good way.

"Kirishima-san... I enjoyed our date."

Their hands were clasped together. 

Between both of their palms, Touka felt the creation of a young sun, warm and vibrant. She closed her eyes and remembered the warmth of a cluttered home with its own random noises. She remembered the calm, stormy confidence of her mother during their walks to school. She held onto that hand long to map her way through the city, but to lead her to the next step of the journey. Their fingers intertwined like a secret, hidden promise. A memory of her father grabbing her hand urgently and twisting their fingers in an old promise game flickered through her mind. It was a bad memory, but in the warmth of the barista's hand, it didn't hurt as much. They were lifelines to each other in this world of life and death, but that promise she made so long ago - it was the impetus for her explorations of the world. 

Between the two of them, there was an life of joy and sadness, of evanescent success and temporary failures, of truth and lies mixed together. They missed the sunset because of their work, but this night sky, with the moon in a crescent smile, was equally as beautiful as any sun.

"I did too, Kaneki-san." 

She wanted to see the sun as well. 

 


End file.
